


je l'ai trouvé

by FLWhite



Series: mes fils stupides [4]
Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Angst, Eliott POV, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Vignettes, s3e9 to s3e10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 18:36:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18212075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FLWhite/pseuds/FLWhite
Summary: Either he is sweating-hot or shiver-cold; there is no comfort to be had.Perhaps he will play a song, though all songs have made him weep since he’s come home from the hospital.Under this monstrous sucking tide of sorrow and guilt and shame, he can barely muster the strength to wipe his eyes.*Three short vignettes: Eliott before and after the events of Vendredi 20:27 (reprise).





	je l'ai trouvé

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe how many words this damn television show has wrung from me. 
> 
> Again, if you're having a tough time, please try to reach out--to someone in your life, or any of these hotlines. You deserve to be in the light again. Bisous.
> 
> [https://thelifelinecanada.ca/help/call](https://thelifelinecanada.ca/help/call/)

**Jeudi, 20:27**

After the Wednesday-night Insta messages, he could not decide if he ought to silence his phone, or leave the vibration on. The violent, almost nauseating need to know immediately if Lucas has again sent something to him eventually won out.

But by this mid-morning, the endless horror of hours in wretched, waiting silence, punctuated by idiotic notifications from Youtube channels that he’d never thought to shut off and strings of guilty text messages from his parents about coming around again tomorrow to check on him, became at last overwhelming. And so he silenced it, and has spent the day in silence.

Anyway, maybe soon there will be no need for the fucking phone at all. Maybe soon he can be free.

He turns, pressing his cheek hard into the pillow, feebly pulling up the sheets. Either he is sweating-hot or shiver-cold; there is no comfort to be had. Perhaps he will play a song, though all songs have made him weep since he’s come home from the hospital. He turns toward the pillow on which his phone lies.

Overturning it, he shudders: _lucalallemant has posted a new story_. His heart beats fast and rabbity behind his breastbone as he tries to catch his breath.

It is many minutes before he dares slide the unlock button and look.

Then it is many minutes again before he can stop crying.

The song ended long ago. He cannot get up. Under this monstrous sucking tide of sorrow and guilt and shame, he can barely muster the strength to wipe his eyes.

 _Go home_ , he thinks at the narrow pane of glass that separates him from the green of the new-spring world, from the chill of the air, from the unbearable light. _Go home, lie down, close your eyes, go back to sleep, forget me._

 

**Vendredi, 18:50**

“Please, _maman_ ,” Eliott murmurs. It’s almost impossible to smile right now, but he makes a desperate effort. He needs her gone. “Please?”

“Oh, all right.” His heart thumps fast as she takes her purse off the hat stand, then returns to the couch and bends to kiss his forehead. The black wretchedness that, like a relentless creeping plant, has put fat thorny tendrils into his throat, weighted down each limb, and now threatens to devour him, comes out as a bit of childish wheedling. This is the best he could’ve hoped for. “Do you want a little ice cream, too, _chéri_? Or just the Crunchy Choco?”

“Just the–” he can’t bring himself to say it again. “Just that.”

“All right.” Another kiss. The vines will choke him if she does not leave soon. But then the door clicks behind her. After waiting at the window to hear her footsteps fading on the flagstones of the little open space in front of the building, that little space where Lucas, poor Lucas, kind Lucas, had stood last night, he dizzily gets to his feet, stabs his feet into his shoes, puts up his hood, and throws himself through the door.

He manages to keep himself moving at a reasonable pace and his face dry until he’s on a quieter road. Then his progress slows.

He is having trouble drawing breath through the sobs that force themselves from him like stones, dark and infinitely heavy.

Each step burns through the soles of his trainers, as though the asphalt is melting underfoot.

As he nears the gates of the Petite Ceinture, a portly gray-haired woman walking her dog starts as he approaches; she quickly crosses the little street, distancing herself almost at a jog.

He sags against the wrought iron. The lock clanks and clatters as he fumbles with it. _Fucking idiot, fucking idiot_ , the monstrous thing in him hisses. _Can’t you get even this right? This last little thing?_ Finally, the chains jangle and the lock drops almost noiselessly onto the turf.

The trees sough and flicker their leaves against a bloated moon, waning gibbous, as he drags himself along the leaf-strewn path, clutching at trunks and branches, eyes barely open though his tears are also finally exhausted and he can only sob and heave in dry, awful waves.

He’s not thought this next part through. He’s simply fled here like a hurt animal.

He’s heard of gravely wounded creatures–bears, perhaps tigers, other fierce beasts–crawling to lay themselves in solitude in a dell or cave, there to die. No bear, he. The world won’t miss one less of him. All the more reason to be alone.

He limps a meter, maybe a meter and a half, past the graffitied lip of the underpass, then can go no further. The pressure of his back against the cold, stained concrete is almost a comfort as he slides down, down, down, until he sits on the hard ground. When he begins to shiver, he draws up his legs until he can press his face into his thighs and wrap his arms around his shins. 

A tiny whisper deep and quiet within him wonders, for a final time, if he might yet be found. If he will again see the sun. But there is only one in all the world who knows where he is, now. A precious one, yes, terribly precious, but one who is afraid of the dark.

 

**Samedi, 11:37**

The same dream as he’s had all week: himself, under dark water, resigned, knees curled to his chest, drifting slowly down. Then a resonant chord, a pealing of distant bells, a glimpse of his own hands ghost-pale before his eyes as he spreads his fingers upward, weakly yearning.

At this point, he should wake up among his rumpled sheets, the clammy pillows, gasping for air. Perhaps his father’s hand will be soft on his shoulder, his mother’s kiss gentle on his brow, calling him “Elly,” as though he were again a baby.

But not today. Today he rouses with his cheek against a scratchy white cushion that is both strange and familiar, in a fall of light too bright to be his own bedroom window. He squints at the ceiling, slides his eyes left and right, cautiously: there is no mistake.

He is on Lucas’s couch.

This realization, on top of the sunshine, is too much.  He winces and shuts his eyes. Gingerly, he shifts his leg, exploratory; it is unnecessary. He would know if Lucas were there, even if he could not move at all. Instead, there is only a vacancy beating like a cold and desperate heart.

He tries to breathe deeply for a few seconds, then holds his breath.

There is the familiar voice, scratchy as the cushions, but chuckling. He carefully, carefully turns his face toward it, unwilling to allow himself to believe in his own senses.

It comes from behind the pale wall that separates the living room from the kitchen. He hears someone else, laughing quietly as well, and he knows he should recognize them from the sound, but he can’t.

It is like how all he could see, last night, plodding slowly toward a bus stop, his arm heavy around Lucas’s shoulders, was Lucas, glowing like a lighthouse’s mirrored flame, incandescent, his very own small sun. All he can hear is that soft low _hah_ , flowing tenderly around him, warm as life.

He also really, really, really needs to pee.

It is not easy, but he manages to lever himself onto his elbows, pivot his hips to his right, and let his feet drop onto the floor. Buoyed by a force he does not yet dare name, a force that buds achingly from a seed he’d begun to think was all along hollow within, he takes a step toward the voices, following the path of the light.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed, please leave me a kudos/comment and take a look at my other SKAMFr fics (I promise they're not all full of sadness).


End file.
